Director/Writer Ann Hu has a small library of work, sporadic and brief in measure, but boy, can it pack a punch in those 3 independent pictures. More like an explosion of...well, Confetti. In 2021, ironically after the well noted attack on Asian Americans and their culture, we have a delightful slice of that very lesson we need to learn, or have the potential to learn. Ann Hu insures this with a very detailed and imaginative script that brings about the struggles of the impressive Zhu Zhu as a young mother in China, desperate to see that her little girl will receive the best levels of education depite learning disabilities. It might sound simple, but as the mother and her daughter sojourn to New York City, you realize learning disabilities, language, and culture, are not the only barriers they will have to defeat.
Hu introduces a varied set of supporting characters involved in this case. A compassionate teacher, A cranky woman with years of baggage, and an instructor. Zhu Zhu portrays the lead beautifully. We are given a wide range of different moments which show her struggle, and how it relates to the culture she was raised in. She delivers the part with stamina and balance. Helen Slater and Amy Irving are a most marvelous pair to see in this little movie. We don't see either of them as often, and so thus their involvement is a sight to behold, and they're both great in their roles. The young Harmonie He is a real treat. Adorably focused and poised with umph and discipline. She's a young talent on par with Shirley Temple who just might go far.
Hu sprinkles her narrative with hints of the back story for the mother of the story, and how she has struggled too, similarly and without help. We are gifted to instances wherein our view of the world becomes momentarily distorted when we see the world through her eyes. It's at this point that we begin to see where things are TRULY deeper than they appear. We come to learn everyone has a story, and everyone struggles. There is also, a fantastic presence of unity suggested by such circumstances. Suddenly, this situation is not black and white, cut and dry, iron and steel. None of it. People are complex, life is complicated, and most dilemmas do not get fixed easily.
Hu's message is ultimately positive, wrought with reconciliation and acceptance on life, who we are, where we are and come from. It's a definite thinking picture, but on terms of people and only people, not a societal whole like most american films are desperately trying to do today. This film is personal, it's deep, and it's powerful. Such a move as this on Hu's part, plays out more like a celebration of cultural and societal differences, and here we see the sweet imaginative way we connect through our own beings, and the way to do that, is us.
